Overview

Overview

Tappya Online Ordering is the customer-facing app where diners can browse your menu and place orders directly with you, no aggregator, no commission. It's a web app, not a download: customers reach it on their phone browser by scanning a QR code, tapping a Menu Link, or visiting your branded URL.

This article is your map of how online ordering fits together. For step-by-step setup see Merchant Setup. For what the customer experiences see Customer Experience.

How customers reach your menu

There are three main entry points, all of which land in the same online-ordering app:

1. QR code on the table: for dine-in, the QR encodes the branch and the table. The app opens straight to that table's session.
2. Menu Link: a branded URL you share on social, on flyers, or as a click-to-order button. Customers pick the branch (or it's pre-set) and choose Pickup or Delivery.
3. Direct URL: https://order.tappya.com/<branch-slug> (or your custom domain, if you have one). Behaves like a Menu Link.

A single online-ordering app handles all three; the entry point just changes the initial state of the cart (dine-in table vs delivery / pickup).

Supported order types

Per branch you can enable any combination of:

• Dine-In: customer is seated at a table, ordered from QR code. Orders go straight to the kitchen.
• Pickup / Takeaway: customer collects from the branch at a chosen time.
• Delivery: delivered to the customer's address. Requires delivery zones to be configured.

Order types can be toggled per branch and per time window (e.g. you might offer delivery only between 11am and 10pm).

How the customer signs in

• Sign-in is phone-based using OTP. The customer enters their phone number, gets a 6-digit code by SMS, and that's it.
• Most customers don't have an email on file and that's expected, Tappya is designed for this. Email is optional everywhere; nothing should be gated on it.
• A signed-in customer carries their saved addresses, payment methods, loyalty balance, and order history across visits.
• Signing in is required to place a delivery order or to see saved addresses, but not required to browse the menu or add to cart. The app asks for sign-in at checkout if needed.

What's wired into the customer app today

How orders flow back to you

Every online order, regardless of type, lands in your dashboard's Live Orders view and (for items routed to the kitchen) on your KDS. There's no separate "online orders" inbox to monitor, it's the same single queue your POS orders sit in.

Dine-in QR orders are matched to the table automatically and share the table's open ticket with whatever the waiter or POS may have already added, so multiple guests at the same table accumulate into one bill.

Branding

The customer app inherits your tenant's branding:

• Logo, cover image, and primary / secondary colours are pulled from the Menu Link or from the branch's branding settings.
• The app supports English and Arabic out of the box, translations apply to UI chrome, not your menu content (you control the languages on your items in the catalog).

Related articles

• Customer Experience: what diners see and do.
• Merchant Setup: what you configure in the dashboard.
• Troubleshooting: when something doesn't behave as expected.

Key Concepts

• Branch slug: The short URL fragment that identifies a branch in the customer app (e.g. sage-stone). Set on the branch.
• Menu Link: A configured public entry point that bundles a branch + a published menu + branding.
• Order type: Dine-In, Pickup, or Delivery. Enabled per branch.
• OTP sign-in: Phone + 6-digit SMS code. The only sign-in method for customers; no passwords.